INDUSTRIES 



which he asserts had been given to none but 

 himself and his ancestors for over sixty years 

 he had no sale for the powder made by him 

 for the king> But on 12 January 1627-8, 

 the Earl of Totnes " complains to Buckingham 

 of the inability of the Ordnance Office to arm 

 an intended fleet of a hundred ships, and says 

 that Mr. Evelyn was sinking under the bur- 

 den of the great sums due to him. No more 

 was to be expected of him until he had been 

 satisfied. Not more than 50 lasts were in 

 store, and the proposed fleet would require near 

 250. To remedy this state of affairs in the 

 government stores some attempt seems to have 

 been made, previously to this, to import foreign 

 powder. The report on this attempt was 

 distinctly unfavourable.^ Philip Burlamachi 

 had delivered in July 1627, 56 lasts of Dutch 

 powder at a price nearly double that of the 

 powder supplied by Evelyn. Moreover this 

 powder had proved so inferior that 4 lb. 

 of it were less effectual than 3 lb. of Eng- 

 lish, so that, it is added, if the money had 

 been found for Evelyn the king might have 

 had, instead of these 56 lasts of Dutch powder, 

 within the same space of time, 60 lasts of 

 English at almost half the price and of one 

 fourth better quality. 



Notwithstanding Evelyn's difficulties in 

 getting payment for his powder from the gov- 

 ernment, there were not wanting rivals who 

 in this same year were prepared to blacken 

 his name by representing him as the owner of 

 a large fortune derived from the ill-gotten 

 gains of deceits practised upon the Commis- 

 sioners. In some memoranda existing amongst 

 the State Papers and assigned to the year 1628 

 the damage sustained by the Crown in seven 

 years by the contracts for converting saltpetre 

 into gunpowder is computed to amount to 

 ;^io6,925, and it is offered to prove to the 

 Commissioners that Evelyn and his agent 

 Pygott by their monopoly, giving bribes, de- 

 ceiving the king, abusing the subject, and out 

 of other men's labours had got an estate of 

 near ;^40,ooo within four years.* Such ob- 

 jections to Evelyn's performance of his con- 

 tracts were doubtless not altogether disinter- 

 ested, and were presumably estimated at their 

 proper value by the authorities. 



In one of these papers however is recorded 

 a transaction of the government, whereby it 

 appears that whilst putting off the evil day of 

 payment, it endeavoured to retain some part 

 of the gunpowder delivered, and for a length- 

 ened period to preserve its option of ultimately 



» S. P. Dom. Chas. I. Ixxxix. 9. 



' Ibid. xc. 64. 3 Ibid. xciv. 105. 



* Ibid. Add. dxxix. 88, 89. 



purchasing the remainder. One Sir Thomas 

 Bludder had proposed to the Lords to pay 

 Evelyn himself when the Treasurer made de- 

 fault, and to take over the powder, of which 

 he would give the king the tenth part for 

 nothing and sell the residue at lod. the pound. 

 This offer had been accepted by the Lords by 

 their order of 24 January 1627-8, with the 

 provision that all the powder should first be 

 sent to the Tower, and, if paid for within 

 fourteen days of delivery and proof, should be 

 put into the king's stores. Otherwise Bludder 

 was to take it away, but with the option re- 

 served to the Crown of purchasing any that 

 had not been retailed to subjects at 8^^. the 

 pound. By means of this little arrangement 

 it is stated that Evelyn had brought in to the 

 Tower two months' more proportion than 

 otherwise he would have done. This quan- 

 tity had been acquired by Bludder and sold by 

 him at 10^. to Sir Paul Harris, who had again 

 sold the same to a merchant at 1 1 ^d. Ob- 

 jections had been raised to this transaction, 

 which are answered in the document under 

 notice. One of these had been to the selling 

 of the powder out of the royal stores, to 

 which the answer was, that ' being in the Tower 

 was not being in the stores and that as good 

 sell it from there as from Evelyn's own store- 

 house.' 



The subsequent history of Evelyn's con- 

 tracts varies little from the preceding, save 

 only that the getting of any money out of the 

 Treasury seems to have been a work of in- 

 creasing difficulty. For only twelve months 

 of the whole thirty- six for which powder was 

 to be supplied by him in accordance with the 

 terms of the contract of 1627 was he able to 

 deliver the required quantity. By the con- 

 tract of 1630 a further sum of ^2,000 was 

 to be imprested. This contract is omitted 

 from the before-quoted report of 1637, and 

 how much powder Evelyn may have supplied 

 whilst it was in operation cannot be stated. 

 Probably he fared no better than before. At 

 any rate during the last of his triennial con- 

 tracts, that of 1632, only nine months' pro- 

 portion of powder was sent in by him. 



In the closing days of the term of this 

 contract there seems to have been consider- 

 able uncertainty on the part of the Commis- 

 sioners as to the future conduct of the gun- 

 powder business. Various tenders were 

 made ; amongst them were those of Sir 

 Arthur Mainwaring and Andrew Pitcairn, 

 who offered to supply powder at Sd. the 

 pound, and of the Earl of Newport and Sir 

 John Heydon, who were ready to provide 

 powder, if upon the king's stock of j^4,000 

 at yd., if upon their own stock at 8d. the 



317 



